


Secrets

by cosmic_kid



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 16:31:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_kid/pseuds/cosmic_kid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brief look at the Kaidanovskys' relationship. Mentions character death, so probably not the happiest ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secrets

Her mother said: all married women learn how to keep secrets.

She thinks of that now and laughs. Her mother’s only weapon had been secrets. Money kept squirreled away in places her father would not think to look; phone numbers and text messages deleted quickly before anyone had the chance to see them; apartments in the city, friends with no names or faces. Sasha watched her mother build walls and barricades of secrets. It was a way of being strong, but it was a way that did not interest Sasha at all.

*

Aleksis is hard-faced but soft-mouthed. When they meet, he tells her immediately how pretty he thinks she is. She says she knows. He laughs- a big laugh, a real one- and asks her if she should be playing hard to get. Sasha says she doesn’t like wasting time. She fucks him that first night. There is nothing between them but skin, not even enough space for the night to seep through. Aleksis falls asleep first and Sasha watches his eyes move behind the lids, his dreams hidden from her. 

*

They watch the world end. Aleksis asks her if she thinks the monsters from beneath the sea will be too much for them. Sasha laughs. Maybe for them. Not for her.

*

Cherno Alpha becomes the skin they slip into, the elimination of human distance. Cherno Alpha becomes their carapace, a world where there is no need for the unnecessary finesse of words. They are called brutal, they are called unrefined, but they are mostly called effective and they can maintain their neural handshake longer than any other Jaeger pilots. It is because their Drift is distilled to the bare essence of knowing, without complicated descriptors: there is fury and there is desire and there is vengeance and there is love. It was all they ever needed before. It is their greatest strength now.

*

They keep Vladivostok safe but it doesn’t matter in the end because it seems like whatever-the-hell is on the other side of the Breach can make an endless number of kaiju, but the human world cannot make many more like Sasha and Aleksis Kaidonovsky. When their Shatterdome is decommissioned, they go to Hong Kong because if humanity is going to make its last stand, Sasha is certainly going to be part of it. Marshall Pentecost says they need her but Sasha laughs, says that she knows.

*

“We may die,” Aleksis says. They are in bed together and she can feel Aleksis growing tired. They are inside each other’s heads more and more now. She thinks of Cherno Alpha, ever-ready, and one more mission. She thinks of the secrets her mother wove to keep her own small world from ending and how the only way Sasha has staved off this larger Armageddon was to swear off the possibility of secrets for good. Aleksis knows every inch of her, skin and synapse. There are so many ways to be strong. 

“That’s fine,” Sasha says. He smiles at her, closes his eyes. She watches him sleep. She knows his dreams now. They are her, mostly: dancing in the snow.

*

Dying in someone else’s head is better than dying alone.

Mother says all married women must learn how to keep secrets.

Sasha sees Aleksis seeing Sasha seeing Aleksis. There is no pain. There is no distance. Maybe he tried to say her name but it does not matter.

She knows.


End file.
